The present invention relates to a heliport pad and more particularly to an articulated heliport pad with enhanced safety features.
Helicopters have found wide use in the transportation of personnel and material and are particularly advantageous environments where space is at a premium, e.g., the tops of tall buildings, hospitals, airports, ships at sea, structures in off-shore oil fields, etc. The landing and take off by helicopters from many of these structures is particularly difficult because of the effects which the structure itself has on the wind. A vertical movement of several feet at the ends of the helicopter rotors is not unusual in response to wind gusts, and the loading and unloading of helicopters with the engines running and the rotors engaged is particularly hazardous, especially when operating on unstable platforms such as ships and on off-shore platforms where the winds may be high, variable and obstructed only by the structure of the platform itself. In the operation of a helicopter, it is desirable to take off and land into the wind and it is also desirable to provide some means of immediately securing the helicopter to the platform upon landing and of permitting testing of the helicopter prior to take off without fear of unexpected lift off. The present invention provides a solution to these long known problems.
It has long been known that, the orientation of an aircraft with respect to the ground may be changed by a horizontal structure rotatable about a vertical axis as disclosed in the Anderson U.S. Pat. No. 2,395,528 dated Feb. 26, 1946. Moreover, it is known to rotate a platform for the purpose of making a limited adjustment to facilitate the orientation of a helicopter relative to the direction of the wind, as shown in the Lemming, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,785,316 dated Jan. 15, 1974 in a ship board environment.
Tie-downs for securing a helicopter to a pad are also well known and include simple cable devices as shown in the aforementioned Lemming et al. patent as well as haul-down cables such as disclosed in the Shawn U.S. Pat. No. 4,258,888 dated Mar. 31, 1981 and the Baekken U.S. Pat. No. 3,559,927 dated Feb. 2, 1971. Still other helicopters have been provided with an anchoring probe or harpoon whereupon the helicopter may be landed in particular spot where the probe attached to the helicopter may be grasped. Examples of such probes are disclosed in the Middleton U.S. Pat. No. 4,420,131 dated Dec. 13, 1983 and the Bennett, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,075,731 dated Jan. 29, 1963. In still other hold-down devices such as that disclosed in the Sardanowski, U.S. Pat. No. 4,174,081, hold-down is achieved by means of a vacuum cavity over which the helicopter lands. In some of these known devices, the pilot may have control of the release of the hold-down device.
While such known systems are advantageous, no known system has provided a fully integrated system whereupon the pilot, from the aircraft, may control the orientation of his helicopter relative to the wind during take-off and landing as well as the operation of a device achieving hold-down of the helicopter to the landing pad.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a novel heliport pad controllable by the pilot from the helicopter in its orientation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a novel heliport pad controllable by the pilot from the helicopter as to the operation of a hold-down device.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a novel method of landing a helicopter whereby significant enhancement in safety for embarking and disembarking personnel is achieved.
Yet a further object of the present invention is to provide a novel method of enhancing the safety of the helicopter when taking off and landing.
These and many other objects and advantages of the present invention will be obvious to one skilled in the art from the claims and from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the appended drawings.